Seek a Hand to Hold in the Darkness
by ariel2me
Summary: QUOTE SWAP: Stannis Baratheon "There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it." (Stannis took his daughter to court, and recalled the first time he was taken to court by his lord father.)


_"There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it."_

 _~ Jon Snow to Samwell Tarly in A Clash of Kings_

 _"I remember the first time my father took me to court, Robert had to hold my hand. I could not have been older than four, which would have made him five or six. We agreed afterward that the king had been as noble as the dragons were fearsome." Stannis snorted._ _"_ _Years later, our father told us that Aerys had cut himself on the throne that morning, so his Hand had taken his place._ _It was Tywin Lannister who'd so impressed us."_

 _~ A Storm of Swords_

 _Alfred was obsessed by order, obsessed by the task of marshaling life's chaos into something that could be controlled. He would do it by the church and by the law, which are much the same thing, but I wanted to see a pattern in the strands of life. In the end I found one, and it had nothing to do with any god, but with people. With the people we love. We are all lonely and all_ **seek a hand to hold in the darkness**. _It is not the harp, but the hand that plays it._

 _~ The Last Kingdom (Bernard Cornwell)_

* * *

It was Renly who stoked the flame of Robert's suspicion, Renly with his remark about Stannis hiding his daughter from the sight of gods and men. Renly, all of eighteen and newly appointed as master of laws, the position once held by his lord father Steffon Baratheon when Lord Steffon was summoned to court by King Aerys II, and the position once held by his grandsire Ormund Baratheon at the tail end of King Aegon V's reign, before Lord Ormund was made Hand of the King by his good-brother King Jaehaerys II. Renly, attending his first small council meeting and determined to make an impression, even if it came at the expense of his brother and his niece.

Stannis had counseled Robert against Renly's appointment to the small council, when Robert first broached the matter. "Renly is too young, too untested. Invite him to court, put him in charge of a smaller undertaking to begin with. See how well he fares, how well he conducts himself."

"I appointed _you_ master of ships when you were not that much older."

"That was _after_ I built a fleet for you, _after_ I rooted the Targaryen loyalists out of Dragonstone. What has Renly done to prove himself capable of being master of laws?"

Robert ignored the question. Instead, he went back to the refuge of the past. "Our lord father was not so very old, when he was appointed to the small council."

"Our lord father was thirty two, not eighteen." Too young to die, certainly, but not an untested youth still wet behind the ears.

"My own good-father was barely twenty when Aerys made him Hand of the King," Robert persisted.

"Is that the precedent you wish to emulate? The Mad King himself?"

Robert had roared in anger, hearing that. Perhaps that was what first planted the seed of his suspicion with Stannis, regarding Shireen.

At the small council meeting, they were discussing the upcoming feast for Robert's nameday celebration, and the list of attendees (as well as non-attendees) for the occasion. "Lord Stark sent his deepest regret –" Jon Arryn began, but he was interrupted by Renly, who asked, seemingly in all innocence, "Will you be taking your daughter to court for this joyous occasion, Stannis? We have never seen her in court, if I recall. Even your own brothers have barely seen your daughter at all, only a glimpse when she was still a babe in swaddling clothes. Are you so intent on hiding her from us? Or only from Robert?"

Stannis bristled hearing that. "I am not hiding her. You are welcome to visit her in Dragonstone any time you wish, Renly. But I suppose the place holds very little charm for you, seeing as it lacks all the pomp and grandeur you are so fond of."

"The lack of charm is not _entirely_ the fault of the _place_ , I would surmise," Renly said, with a grin.

"Remind me, Lord Stannis, how old is your daughter?" Jon Arryn quickly interjected, before Stannis could reply with a caustic remark of his own.

"Six," Stannis replied, curtly, still seething at Renly.

Robert had been yawning and nodding off throughout the small council meeting, but he was suddenly alert. "I was six the first time my lord father took me to court," he declared.

 _Us_ , Stannis thought. _He took us both to court. I was there as well. Do you not remember it? Father told you to hold my hand._

Robert was staring at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Renly is right. Why have you never taken your daughter to court, Stannis? Do you mean to hide her from me, as our lord father tried to keep the Mad King's gaze away from his sons?"

Grandson of one king, nephew of another, and cousin to yet another king, Steffon Baratheon had spent many years in court during his own childhood and youth, first serving as a royal page and later as a royal squire. But none of his sons had served in court during the reign of King Aerys the Second, even though that king was not only Steffon's own cousin, but had also been his inseparable childhood companion.

Renly had thought it infinitely amusing, when he first heard the story of how his older brothers mistook Tywin Lannister for the king. "To think of my _clever, clever_ brothers being so fooled," he had said, when he finally managed to stop laughing.

"He was sitting on the throne looking for all the world like he belonged there. How were we supposed to know?" Robert had grumbled.

"But why did it take _years_ to clear up the misunderstanding? Why did it take _years_ for you to realize that the man you saw on the throne that day was not Aerys Targaryen? Surely you would have been taken to court again not long after that. Surely you would have been introduced to the real king."

In truth, it was not until four years later, four years after their first visit to court that Robert and Stannis were taken to King's Landing again by their lord father, to attend the tourney celebrating the anniversary of Aerys' tenth year on the Iron Throne. The king had seemed a far less impressive figure than Tywin Lannister to Robert, and Stannis had thought His Grace a disappointingly petty and quarrelsome man concerned only with showcasing his own grandeur.

Steffon Baratheon's own visits to court dwindled to almost nothing after that anniversary tourney, and though he promptly obeyed the command when Aerys summoned him to court and appointed him to the small council six years later, he still kept his sons away from court, never taking advantage of the king's newfound reliance on his cousin and old childhood companion to find a place for Robert and Stannis either in the king's retinue, or in Prince Rhaegar's retinue.

"He did it to protect his sons," Great-Uncle Harbert had told Stannis, not long after his father's death. "He did it because he knew the boy he loved had grown into a dangerous man, a man who would not hesitate to use his cousin's sons to further his own cause or to retaliate against those he perceived to be his enemies. Your father did not want you and your brothers to be used as Aerys' pawns. But in trying so hard to keep Aerys' gaze away from his sons, he also kept _their_ gaze away from Aerys. He kept his sons ignorant of the dangers posed by Aerys, both to House Baratheon and to the entire realm."

They did not remain ignorant for long, though, the sons of Steffon Baratheon. Only a scant few years after the death of Lord Steffon and his lady wife, Aerys demanded the head of Steffon's oldest son.

The oldest son who was at this moment glowering at his younger brother with suspicion, demanding of him, "Your daughter will be here for my nameday celebration, Stannis. This is a king's command, not a brother's request."

"When have I ever disobeyed your command? I have always done my duty by you," Stannis furiously reminded him in return.

* * *

"What is Robert playing at? What is _Renly_ playing at, for that matter?" Stannis muttered under his breath, after the small council meeting ended and he and Jon Arryn were the only ones left in the room, trying to impose some semblance of order after the chaotic proceeding. Often, the small council meetings truly decided nothing, devolving into a feast of endless chatter, complaining and back-biting. The _real_ work took place elsewhere and at a different time, with only the Hand of the King and the master of ships in attendance.

In Stannis' view, Jon Arryn was too prone of indulging the desire of some members of the council to prattle on and on about inconsequential matters during the meetings. _A colossal waste of time_ , thought Stannis, but Jon insisted that it was not only tactful, but also useful in its own way.

Referring to Renly's sly remark about Stannis hiding his daughter from Robert' gaze, Jon said, "Renly is young. The young is often ... reckless. Perhaps he thought this a _just_ retaliation."

" _Just_ retaliation? For what?"

Sighing, Jon said, "I'm afraid Robert while in his cups confided to Renly about your strenuous opposition to his appointment to the small council. I told Robert that it was a most unwise thing to do. The last thing he needs is a Baratheon house divided."

Stannis frowned. "Did we not both agree, Lord Arryn, that my brother Renly is not ready to be master of laws?"

"We did agree, yes. And we both made our case to the king. He decided against our counsel. It is not wise to keep harping on a matter once it has been decided, Stannis. Robert is not always certain about what to do as king, despite his bluster and his confident assertion to the contrary. That makes him prickly and easily suspicious, when he is constantly challenged about a matter he considers already decided."

Stannis snorted. "He seems certain enough about stubbornly having his own way and ignoring wise counsel."

"It is a delicate balancing act, handling a king." Jon Arryn said, looking drawn and weary. An old man. Old enough to be Stannis' grandsire.

Stannis had never felt easy in this man's company, despite all the years they had spent working together in the small council. Abruptly, before he could change his mind, he asked, "Has it been very hard for you, being Robert's Hand?"

"Viserys the Second served as Hand to three kings before he ascended to the throne. He was Hand to his brother, and later to his two nephews, each king having his own peculiarities and presenting a different set of challenges for Prince Viserys to handle. I often think of Prince Viserys on my hardest days as Hand, to remind myself that my travails must be as nothing compared to his."

The melancholic king, the king mad for glory, and the king mad for the gods; the man who would later ascend to the Iron Throne as Viserys II Targaryen had served them all.

And what kind of king was Jon Arryn serving?

 _The kind he is still willing to make excuses for_ , Stannis thought, after Jon Arryn continued with, "Robert is not himself at the moment. He is ... distraught. This will be his thirty-third nameday after all."

"I can count, Lord Arryn." And what did turning thirty three have to do with Robert not being himself?

"Your lord father did not live to see his thirty-third nameday. When a man has lived longer than his father ever did ..." Jon Arryn halted, looking away.

It was not a reminder Stannis welcomed, the reminder about the death of his father. And his mother. "Our lady mother also did not live to see her thirty-third nameday," he said sharply.

Jon Arryn cleared his throat, before saying, "She was a ... a good woman, Lady Cassana."

The words sounded hollow to Stannis' ears. Jon Arryn had not known Cassana Estermont the way he had known her husband. It was to Steffon Baratheon that Jon Arryn had extended his hand when the former was mourning the loss of his father, to Steffon Baratheon that Jon Arryn had first made himself available as a surrogate father figure, years before he formally became a foster father to Steffon's oldest son and heir.

And hadn't there been, Stannis tried to remember, some kind of coolness in his lady mother's sentiment towards Jon Arryn? Certain words he had overheard as a boy, words never meant for his ears, only for his father's ears. _He has ambitions for you, Steffon. Plans and ambitions and gods know what else. Be cautious of Lord Arryn. In his own way, he could be as dangerous as Aerys._

* * *

The original plan agreed upon by Stannis and his lady wife was for Selyse and Shireen to sail from Dragonstone together, for Shireen's first visit to court to be accompanied by her lady mother, by the parent she was most comfortable with, the one she knew best and who knew _her_ best. But a few days before their ship was supposed to sail to King's Landing, Selyse came down with redspots, an illness she had never contracted as a child, and thus was vulnerable to as a grown woman.

In her letter to Stannis, Selyse insisted that Shireen still made the trip to King's Landing, accompanied by Stannis' former squire Ser Andrew Estermont _. It is better for our daughter to be away from Dragonstone,_ Selyse wrote _, with redspots being a highly contagious disease. Granted, it is not a very dangerous illness for a child, but_ _any kind of illness is still vexing for one so young, and with her lady mother abed and ill herself, this would be a terrible time for Shireen to fall ill._

Selyse sounded very determined, and when she was _this_ determined, there was no gainsaying her. Stannis wrote a few stiff and awkward words expressing his hope that she would recover promptly from her illness and would not suffer too badly from it, all the while wondering and worrying about what he was supposed to _do_ with his daughter, with this child he had rarely spent any time alone with. Would Shireen cry, Stannis wondered, when she saw him meeting her at the dock, realizing that she was supposed to spend an extended amount of time with _this_ parent, the unfamiliar parent whose visits home were rare and uncertain, while her mother, the always-present parent, was so far away in Dragonstone?

She did not cry when Stannis met her at the dock. But her little hand seemed reluctant to let go of Andrew Estermont's hand, and she hesitated for a long time before placing her hand in her father's grasp. She winced slightly when Stannis squeezed her hand, a gesture that was supposed to signify comfort and safety, Selyse had assured Stannis.

 _Too hard, you fool. You are squeezing her hand too hard._

Shireen's eyes grew as big as saucers, as they entered the throne room. Robert was not sitting on the throne holding court that day, still abed after a long night of drinking and carousing.

"That is not your uncle Robert. That is –"

"Lord Arryn!" Shireen interjected, smiling for the first time since her arrival in King's Landing. "I remember when he came to Dragonstone and brought me a gift. It was a book about all the _wondrous_ animals and creatures that exist in the known world, not just in Westeros."

Stannis was surprised. "You were only four when Lord Arryn came to visit us in Dragonstone. I did not think you would remember." But after all, Stannis himself had been four when he was taken to court for the first time, and he remembered many things from that visit. Why should his daughter be any different?

"I remember _some_ things," Shireen replied, "and Mother and Maester Cressen told me other things, the ones I had forgotten."

They watched and listened as Jon Arryn adjudicated a case regarding a minor lordling from the Crownlands who refused to return his former wife's dower land after their marriage was annulled. "What does it mean, that word, Father?" Shireen asked.

"Which word?"

"Con … con … consummated? The lady in that white dress said her marriage was never consummated. What did she mean?"

"It means they never had children." It meant _more_ than that, much more, but Stannis was not about to explain this to a six-year-old while they were standing in the middle of the throne room. In fact, it was not a matter he _ever_ wished to discuss with his daughter at all, no matter how old she was, or where they were. It was a matter best left to Selyse, he thought, best left to Shireen's lady mother.

Gradually, Shireen became aware of the faces and expressions of the many, many people staring at them, staring at _her_. Biting her lower lip, as if determined not to cry, she repeated the refrain, "I am not afraid. I am _not_ ," in a low voice, as if speaking to herself, trying to convince herself.

"It is fine if you are afraid. There's no shame in fear, my father told me, what matters is how we face it."

Eyes wide open, looking up at her father, Shireen asked, "Were _you_ afraid, when your father took you to court for the first time? You were only four, Mother said, even younger than I am. Was that when Grandfather told you that there's no shame in being afraid?"

Stannis nodded. "I was afraid when I first saw the dragon skulls hanging on the wall."

Her eyes searching the throne room, Shireen asked, "Where? I don't see any dragon skull."

"The skulls are not there anymore. Your uncle Robert took them down when he became king and replaced them with those tapestries with the hunting scenes."

"Why were you afraid, Father? Did you think the dragon skull would come to life and _eat_ you?"

That was _exactly_ what he had been afraid of. He had not shared that fear with Robert, not wanting to be called a silly, cowardly little boy by his older brother. His father had guessed, though. _The dragons are long dead, and they will never return. They cannot hurt you, Stannis, I promise,_ Steffon had whispered to Stannis, out of Robert's hearing.

* * *

Myrcella had quickly taken her cousin under her wings. They were playing monsters and maidens in the courtyard, the three of them, Myrcella, Shireen and Tommen. Joffrey was nowhere to be seen, nowhere near Shireen, which was a relief to Stannis, truth be told, considering what he had seen of how Joffrey treated his younger siblings.

"Look at them, so carefree, without a worry in the world." Stannis turned at the sound of Robert's voice. Robert sighed, before adding, "I remember being that young once, that carefree, that _free_."

"Before you were burdened by affairs of state and the business of the realm every minute of every day, you mean?" Stannis asked sarcastically.

"Exactly!" Robert replied, somehow missing the sarcasm in Stannis' voice. "It's one thing after another. And it never ends. _Your Grace, what must we do about this? Your Grace, how should we solve that problem?_ I have a mind to send everybody packing." After a pause, he asked, "Remember the first time Father took us to court?"

 _I have been remembering nothing else all day_ , Stannis thought.

Robert continued, "When we saw Tywin Lannister that day, sitting on the throne, I thought it would be so glorious to live as long as that, to grow that old and powerful, to sit there on the throne so majestically with everyone bowing and scraping, hanging on to your every word. Little did I know …" Robert's voice trailed off into silence.

"Tywin Lannister was only six-and-twenty at the time. Hardly an old man."

Robert groaned. "Don't be so _bloody_ _literal_ , Stannis." He added, "Though, it _is_ strange to think of my good-father as a young man. Remember what Great-Uncle Harbert once said about him? ' _Born and fashioned a man of middle age, that one.'_ "

"You are mistaken. Great-Uncle Harbert was referring to me, not to Lord Tywin."

"No, _you_ are mistaken."

"I am not!"

"We could ask Cressen, I suppose. How old is he now? Eighty? Close to it, I'd wager. Soon he will be gone as well, and there will be no one left who remembers."

 _Except us._

But they recalled such different things, Stannis and his brothers. Shared experience very seldom translated into shared memory for them.

Stannis did not want to think about Maester Cressen dying. He changed the subject. "Did you ever tell Lord Tywin about us mistaking him for the king?"

Robert laughed. "Do you take me for a _fool_? Of course I never did. No need to inflate his hubris and his sense of his own importance even more." Robert paused again, staring into the distance. "I should have said no, when Jon proposed the match with Cersei."

Stannis had even less of a wish to discuss his brother's marriage. "You should have sent Jaime Lannister to the Wall," he said instead.

Robert shook his head. "He did me a favor, killing Aerys."

"Aerys should have paid for his crimes, but he should have been punished according to the law. That was ill done, how he died. It was murder, not justice."

"You and Ned are in agreement about that. Except Ned spoke of honor instead of justice." With a sly glance at Stannis, Robert said, "See, I don't always listen to Ned either."

"Or to Jon Arryn. Or to Father and Mother when they were still alive."

"Why don't we ever talk about them?"

No need to ask who Robert meant. Their father and mother.

"You only ever want to talk about Lyanna Stark." It was as if her death had overshadowed everything else, had become the defining tragedy of his life, as Robert saw it. As if the death of their father and mother had been relegated into some distant and musty corner for Robert, Stannis thought, not without resentment.

"Her loss was something I thought I could avenge. But smashing Rhaegar's skull did not feel so good in the end. It did not bring her back, and that was the only thing I wanted."

You could not smash a storm, or the sea, or the gods, with your warhammer. Though, Stannis had felt like smashing all seven idols in the sept with his bare hands while he and Robert were keeping vigil for their parents' bodies.

"You should have done it. It would have made you feel better. At least in that moment."

"Done what?"

"Smashed the gods in the sept. You wanted to, I know you did. I saw the way your fists were clenched. That was how I felt just before I smashed Rhaegar's skull."

"What good would that have done?"

"What good does silently brooding and seething with fury do? Except to make you lose your hair prematurely, and aggravate others to no end with the exasperating sound of your teeth grinding at all hours."

* * *

The next night, while Stannis and Shireen were eating supper, Renly suddenly came bounding in, followed by a servant carrying a large crate.

"Peaches fresh from Highgarden, for my _faaaaaaavorite_ niece," he announced, in a silly, childish, sing-songy voice, as if Shireen were three instead of six. They were also dolls and picture books in the crate, gifts he described and expanded upon at great length.

After the gifts were put away and Shireen had gone to bed, Stannis stared at Renly with fury and disbelief. "How did you turn out this way? So –"

"So charming?" Renly interrupted, smiling brightly.

"So _false_. So two-faced. Do not for a moment believe that I am not aware of what you have been saying behind my back about my daughter. ' _That poor girl, with her father's jaw and her mother's ugly Florent ears. It's bad enough she has that monstrous thing on her cheek.'_ And now you come bounding in here, plying her with gifts and with sweet words and compliments about how _brave_ she is, how _clever_ she is, how she is your favorite niece in the whole wide world. Have you no shame? No shame at all?"

"I can think her ugly, yet still brave and clever, can I not?" Renly asked, still smiling.

"Do not play games with me, Renly," Stannis warned.

Renly's smile disappeared. "And what about you and _your_ game, Stannis? What about you, tattling to Robert about how I am not ready to be master of laws, how he should wait before putting me in the small council?"

"That was not a game. That was, and still is, my honest assessment of the matter. I would have said it to your face had you ever bothered to ask."

"You would have said much and more even without me asking," Renly retorted. Then, as a parting shot, he said, "For your poor daughter's sake, I really hope you are a better father than you are a brother, Stannis."

"What is _that_ supposed to mean?" Stannis demanded, but Renly was already out the door.

* * *

Stannis was still in his solar, reading a long report about the repairs and modifications needed to maintain the royal fleet when Shireen came in, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands.

"I thought you were sleeping." _Oh, what a stupid thing to say._ Obviously his daughter was awake now.

"I _was_ sleeping," Shireen said. "And then I woke up. I had a bad dream."

"A bad dream? About what?"

"About Mother. She was ill and she didn't get better and then … and then …" Shireen halted, very near to tears.

Stiffly, in a gesture that seemed to take a million years to complete, her father put his arms around her. Shireen buried her face in his chest.

"Your mother is fine," Stannis said. "She has recovered from her illness. I had a letter from Maester Cressen just this morning."

Raising her head, mouth gaping, eyes staring daggers at her father, Shireen said, in a voice full of indignation, "Why didn't you _tell_ me? You should have told me, Father! I've been worrying and worrying about Mother. You _know_ I have."

Why _hadn't_ he told her? It had not even occurred to him. It _should_ have occurred to him.

It _would_ have occurred to his father.

 _I am not my father,_ Stannis silently protested. _It is unfair to expect -_

But constantly repeating that as a refrain was not good enough of an excuse, he was forced to admit.

"Forgive me, Shireen. I should have told you."

She relented, a little, finally resting her head on his chest. "Will Mother be coming to King's Landing?"

"No."

"If Mother is not coming, can we go home to Dragonstone together? I know Mother will be very happy to see you." Then, shyly, she added, "It would make me very happy too, Father, even if you only stay for a little while."

He considered her request. There was much to be done, so much to be done here. Could he spare the time? Could he be away from King's Landing even for a short while?

 _For your poor daughter's sake, I really hope you are a better father than you are a brother, Stannis._

In the end, it was Renly's words that decided the matter for Stannis, despite his feelings of outrage and his burning conviction that Renly himself was not much of a brother to have the right to condemn Stannis as a terrible brother. Stannis' stay in Dragonstone was not a long one, for duty and Robert and the fate of the realm still beckoned in King's Landing, but he _had_ gone home with his daughter, as she requested.


End file.
